Reviews

REVIEWS Seventeenth Century Kent: A Social and Economic History. By C. W. Chalklin. 8-| x 5£. Pp. xv + 294. 4 plates, 5 maps and plans. Longmans, 1965. 35s. The seventeenth century has always had a special interest for historians, from Lord Clarendon to Professor Trevor-Roper and Mr. Christopher Hill. For S. R. Gardiner's generation the interest was mainly political; for Mr. Chalklin, as for most modern historians, it is mainly economic and social. More than any other period the seventeenth century marks the transition from medieval to modern England. Queen Elizabeth's England stiU trailed tattered feudal clouds about it and its economy, social structure and pohtical ideas were of recognizably medieval derivation. Queen Anne's England in many ways was nearer to Queen Ehzabeth II's than to Queen Elizabeth I's. Yet to talk of Queen Ehzabeth's or Queen Anne's 'England' is misleading. There were many local and regional communities that constituted the larger community of England, and it is only when we have enough studies like Mr. Chalklin's survey of seventeenth century Kent that we shaU be able to appreciate the interplay of the elements of continuity and of change that is the characteristic feature of the century. This, then, is a necessary book; it is also an extremely good one. Mr. Chalklin is exceptionally weU qualified to write it. Many of his fellow-members of the Society have good reason to remember him as a helpful assistant Archivist in the County Office at Maidstone, and some wiU know of his detailed study of the Tonbridge district. Seventeenth Century Kent is based largely on manuscript sources and is a work of painstaking scholarship. Yet, unlike some works of economic history, it never becomes dense or dry or lapses into jargon. The two important changes which Mr. Chalklin distinguishes in seventeenth century Kent are in its agricultural and its industrial economy. The agricultural economy was—and is—anything but homogeneous, as Mr. Chalklin brings out by showing that whereas the Weald was 40% pasture, 15% meadow and less than 30% under the plough, in North Kent 67% of the land was arable, 18% pasture, and only 1% meadow. The Weald was agriculturaUy conservative compared with other parts of the county where the expansion of hop- and fruitgrowing, the introduction of sainfoin, clover and trefoil, the regular use of leys, and the growth of market-gardening resulted in an agricultural economy in 1700 markedly different from that of 1600. These changes 285 REVIEWS were largely in consequence of the rapid expansion of London and of its demand for food, a demand which the farmers of North Kent in particular were well placed to meet, doubtless with satisfaction to the Capital and certainly with profit to themselves. The influence of London is one of the perenniaUy important strands in the county's history. The change which the seventeenth century witnessed in the industrial economy was the decline, by the end of the century, of the Wealden iron and cloth industries, and the transfer of the industrial centre of gravity to North Kent, largely as the result of the development of the ship-building industry. By 1700 the three dockyards at Chatham, Greenwich and Woolwich were employing several thousand men— employing although not always paying. The men's wages depended upon the affluence or penury of the government at any moment; sometimes they were months in arrear, and there were complaints of workmen in consequence being too weak to work, or even starving. When he turns from an account of the economy to his other main theme, the county in its social aspect, Mr. Chalklin finds considerable evidence of continuity. The estates of the big landowners were probably more stable than in the sixteenth century in spite of the upheaval of the Civil War, the fall in profits from land after 1620, and higher taxation during the Commonwealth which continued after the Restoration. None of the leading gentry were extinguished between 1642 and 1660. Where weU-known familes declined, as a few did, it was because they were living extravagantly, often spending more than they could afford on improving their mansions (why did anyone ever imagine that keeping up with the Joneses was a twentieth century phenomenon?) The yeomen of Kent were a notoriously prosperous class in 1700 as they had been in 1600, their prosperity securely based on their freehold tenure which had long been characteristic of the county, so much so that even where copyhold existed it had acquired almost the same degree of certainty as freehold. At the lower end of the social scale the Kentish labourer received higher wages than his counterpart in the shires, although the advantage was to some extent offset by the higher cost of hving in Kent. Between 1620 and 1700 average daily wages rose from about Is. to Is. 3d., a rise which represented a smaU improvement in the real standard of hving. In population the county was, to a generation which has become accustomed to population explosions, surprisingly stable. I t was around 130,000 in 1600 and 160,000 in 1700. Plague and illnesses born of bad weather rather than malnutrition helped to keep the numbers down. There was migration within the county, and by the end of the century nearly half the townspeople lived in north-west Kent or in the Medway towns. There was immigration, especiaUy after the revocation of the 286 REVIEWS Edict of Nantes in 1685, but there was also emigration; as a consequence of the depression in the cloth industry in the early part of the century some thousands of cloth-workers migrated to the continent. But these were smaU-scale changes, to be set against the continuity represented by an almost stationary population. There was continuity also in the sense of community which endured through all vicissitudes, and in a self- conscious county tradition. Men of Kent and Kentishmen knew that they were different from other men, that they were freer, that their customs were different, that they had always been accorded the place of honour in the King's battle array, and that their ancestors had never been beaten by Duke William of Normandy. It was historical nonsense of course but myths are sometimes more potent than facts, and the Invicta myth helped to bind the county together into a community tough enough to withstand the strains of transition from a medieval to a modern society. FRANK JESSUP Some Kentish Houses. Kentish Sources V. Edited by Elizabeth MeUing, illustrated by Anne M. Oakley. 7|- x 9|. Pp. 88. Kent County Council. 1965.10s. Some Kentish Houses is another welcome addition to the series of source books pubhshed through the Archives Committee of the Kent County Council, and drawing on the documents in the care of the Archives Office for its basic material. The compacted information contained in this volume, number five in the series, repays careful reading by anyone interested in domestic architecture, whether a beginner in the subject or otherwise. The general introduction and that of Part One provide a useful potted summary of local building developments through a critical period, and this alone can provide a basis for further study by the growing number of people who are becoming aware and concerned about the increasing loss of old houses, and who wish to be able to appreciate our surviving examples. For some reason the study of old buildings prompts many of us, the reviewer included, to stand in conjectural appraisement of actual examples, raising successive hypotheses to be demohshed like sand castles. This is all part of the fun and cannot be dispensed with, but no serious consideration can be made without studying documentary evidence. OccasionaUy an actual building may have fuU and complete documention like the coach-house at the Red-Lion, Ospringe (p. 45). In such a case conjecture is time-wasting and worthless. Let us turn to the facts and learn. Examples such as those on pp. 49 and 52 demonstrate the practice of re-using timbers, or demofishing a part of a house, and remind us again that general trends and practices are revealed to 287 REVIEWS us through surviving documents, and thoughtful study of such sources is a needful prehminary to the expression of firm views about the character of period buildings. This excellent book not only indicates how such study can be made for the purpose, but also contains a valuable selection of extracts from available documents. For this reason it would have been improved by a more easily usable contents list with page references, and a general index. The illustrations are a useful adjunct to the text, and are especially interesting where they reproduce drawings from dated documents. However, the iUustration of 'A Typical Kentish Hall-House', on p. 4, must bear criticism, for apart from incorrectly showing the right-hand brace of the haU overhang supported at the rear of the jetty, it also conveys a false impression of the roof to the rest of the building. That shown is more reminiscent of a 17th or even 18th century roof rather than one of the late 14th-15th centuries. This point is important since the angle and depth of roofs often serve as useful pointers to the true origin of a house otherwise behed by exterior alterations. However these points are minor compared with the value of the work as it is difficult to over-rate its worth in publicizing the highly important data available in the archives. Miss Melhng and Miss Oakley are to be congratulated for producing a book which is a 'must' for all who profess any interest in our domestic architecture. E.S. The Arun and Western Rother. By Robert H. Goodsall. 8£ X 5| . Pp. 196 -f x. 57 photographs. Constable, 1962.21s. Mr. Goodsall in his new volume of waterway history traces the story of the River Arun and its tributaries, the North River and the Western Rother, with their network of brooks and branch brooks, from St. Leonard's Forest in East Sussex to Selborne in Hampshire. In doing so he gives a fascinating accountof the history of the countryside through which the rivers flow. In quiet leisurely fashion, the author sets out in search of the source first of the Arun and traces its meanderings until its confluence near Pulborough with the Rother. In this journey of exploration, the readers are the richer for every discovery along the course, whether it be of agricultural, archseological, historical or legendary interest. In this way the book becomes an amazing exhibition of local knowledge with its wealth of detail of medieval churches, castles, ancient bridges, old mills and mill-ponds, the vanished iron industry, the canals and their craft, riverside inns, old customs, old feuds, and with the stories of historic and local literary characters enlivening the scene and weaving human interest into this vivid picture. 288 REVIEWS This is social history at its best, written with knowledge and affe< .n, and the author is indeed well equipped for his task, whether he is • scribing the struggle to win iron from the Weald, the iron miUs, the {• -^s, the furnaces and the ironmasters, or discussing place-names, or di c 'ering the association of the Restoration dramatist, Thomas Otwf / , with Aphra Behn or writing of Gilbert White at Selborne. With meticulous care, he has unearthed countless new details and given many extracts from inaccessible or little known records. The value of the book is further enhanced by some sixty of the author's own photographs and three helpful maps. This has obviously been a loving study and deserves the warmest welcome. A.R. The Widening Thames. By Robert H. Goodsall. 8£ X 5£. Pp. 256 + viii. 56 photographs. Constable, 1965. Pre-publication price to subscribers 25s. Our member Mr. Robert GoodsaU has already put us in his debt by his topographical and historical studies of the ancient road to Canterbury, of the Medway, the Arun and the eastern and western Rother. This long-promised book about the Lower Thames from the Pool of London to the Nore Light is as welcome as its earlier companions. It differs from them perhaps in that ten years have passed since the author first started to collect and study his extensive material, but throughout one finds again the quiet, well-mannered and discursive style by which the earher books were distinguished. This is not to say the author gilds his history. Like Sarah Battle he demands a clean hearth and the rigour of the game, and he is then ready to deal a hand in which trumps appear surprisingly often. The book progresses in a comfortable way from the City of London and the Pool down river, here at Southwark, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Deptford, there at Barking and other places on the Essex shore to return to Kent by way of Erith, Dartford, Stone, Gravesend and the southern bank of the Estuary. Topography and history are cleverly intermingled and linked by the author's own personal evocation. One knows, at once, that Mr. Goodsall has been there and seen for himself, whether it be from a Thames tug, the crowded deck of the Medway Queen between Rochester and Southend, or in talking to the wife of the Vicar of Stone about locked churches. There is much local and not a little national history recalled to our minds. No book of this sort can hope to please everyone. Some matters are bound to be left out—there is nothing, for example, about the Roman boats at Blackfriars Bridge and Guy's Hospital, the Roman hut-circles which stiU could be seen a few years ago on the foreshore 289 19 REVIEWS at Tilbury, the famous hoard of bronze implements dredged from the river at Broadness, the Saxon sculptures revealed by the bombing of All HaUows, Barkingside, or the once important ferry at Lower Higham —but it would be a difficult reader indeed who did not find much for his pleasure and instruction. As in Mr. GoodsaU's other books the illustrations, and there are more than fifty, all from his own photographs, are both informative and delightful. RONALD JESSUP The Poor. Kentish Sources: IV. Edited by Elizabeth Melling, B.A., Assistant Archivist. 8£ x 5£. Pp. 189 + xviii. 12 plates. Kent County Council, Maidstone, 1964.10s. This book is the fourth, and the largest so far, of the County Archives Office pubhcations of original documents in the collection. I t is designed to illustrate the development in Kent of arrangements for dealing with the poor from the sixteenth century to 1834, when the system was drastically reorganized in a form which ended only with the setting up of the National Assistance Board after World War II. The legal and economic background to the documents—far too complex a subject for an attempt to be made to summarize it here—is explained in a series of short essays, and these and the documents themselves will be of great value not only to the social, economic, and local historian, but to the ordinary layman interested in the many points of 'human' interest which are brought to light. Anyone with any experience of social work will recognize a familiar figure in Mrs. String, who, far from appreciating the amenities offered her in Dartford Workhouse in 1737, raved, scolded, and defied aU the governors and their rule, cursed the Mistress, and tore her apron (p. 105). Vagrants from the sixteenth century onwards came in for pretty severe treatment. They could be apprehended, whipped, and then forcibly removed to their place of origin, while property-owners harbouring them were prosecuted. In Kent cartloads of them were collected and sent to be handed over to the authorities at Southwark, 'being the next parish in the next county through which they are to pass for their proper settlements' (pp. 72-3). An Act of 1697 ordered that in future every pauper and his wife and children 'shaU wear upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of the uppermost garment . . . in an open and visible manner . . . a large Roman P, together with the first letter of the name of the parish . . • in red or blue cloth.' This was greatly resented, and there were, no doubt, frequent evasions, but defiance could be punished by loss of aUowances, hard labour, and whipping. We hear of two old ladies at Shoreham 290 REVIEWS who were evidently persistent offenders, but seem to have got off lightly (pp. 123-4). Indeed, the reader of these documents may weU be surprised at the compassion often shown by the Overseers and magistrates administering harsh and sometimes brutal laws. They had, for example, power to put out pauper children as apprentices, and in view of the widespread belief in abuses of this system it says much for Chatham that in 1792 two delegates of the Vestry were sent to Manchester to 'inspect the cotton mills and enquire how the children there are treated' (p. 135). These are only a few, taken at random, of the many interesting matters dealt with in this book, which at 10s., in hard covers, is remarkable value. There is no index. C. R. COUNCER Estate Documents at Lambeth Palace Library. A short catalogue by Jane Sayers. Pp. xv -f- 87. Leicester University Press, 1965. The compiler of any list or catalogue is faced with the twin problems of clarity and balance. It is so easy to present the user with a confused mass of partiaUy digested information. Equally serious, entirely false impressions of the contents of the accumulation being listed may be created by a varying degree of detail, whereby significant groups of papers receive scantier treatment than some less important individual items. Miss Sayers' catalogue is outstanding by reason of her avoidance of both pitfalls. She has limited her field of activity to the estate, principally manorial, records surviving for the Archiepiscopal and other ecclesiastical estates at Lambeth Palace Library. The arrangement, first by rehgious office or house and then topographically by county and parish is simple and direct; the amount of detail provided, limited to the bare essentials. The result is a catalogue which is straightforward to use and offers just the information which is required: it is both practical and, at the same time, attractively produced. To the hst is added a brief Introduction describing the archival history of the documents and indicating their significance, a series of Appendices explaining the numerical arrangement of the records, and an exceUent Index to Places. The typography, format and production are of a very high standard. I t is over forty years since the late Dr. I. J. ChurchiU prepared her useful volume East Kent Records at Lambeth. WhUe in no way replacing that work, this new list greatly increases our knowledge of how much material in this important Library relates to medieval Kent and also to what a considerable extent the Lambeth documents supplement and interlink with those in the Cathedral Library, Canterbury and also in the County Archives Office, Maidstone. Similarly, although to a lesser 291 REVIEWS degree, the student of Surrey, Sussex, Somerset and many other counties wUl be assisted by this admirable work, for ecclesiastical estates as far apart as Bath and WeUs, Ely, St. Benet of Hulme, Norfolk, Winchester and Worcester, are aU represented in the archives here listed. Both Miss Sayers and the Leicester University Press are to be congratulated on a production of the highest level, scholarly, yet simphcity itself. FELIX HULL Christ Church Gate, Canterbury Cathedral. By Philip H. Blake. 8 X 5§. Pp. 51. 11 illustrations. Phillimore & Co., Ltd., Bridge Place, near Canterbury, 1965.12s. 6d. In 1961 Mr. Cecil R. Humphery-Smith wrote in his booklet Heraldry in Canterbury Cathedral that 'Mr. Philip H. Blake and others are also doing much towards adding to our knowledge of the heraldry in the Cathedral'. In the four years which have passed since then Mr. Blake has worked to good purpose. On the 14th February, 1964 there appeared in the Kentish Gazette a long article by him on the heraldry of the Chichele Porch. The arguments used therein are to my mind reasonable and fair but they result in the discrediting of the late Ralph Griffin's theory, expounded in Archceologia, lxxi, that the heraldry of the Porch had a direct reference to the descendants of the Fair Maid of Kent and that it was built 1422-23. Mr. Blake's thesis is that the Porch was in existence by 1418 and that it commemorated the Battle of Agincourt. The present book on Christ Church Gate also reveals Mr. Blake as an iconoclast. Another head falls, almost a la Richard Culmer. William Somner's date of 1507 in his reading of the inscription on the Gate is shown to be unjustifiable, especially as all observers since him have read it as 1517. As Mr. Blake rightly says 'everyone cannot be out of step except our Johnny' and he brings forward evidence to show that the building of the Gate was not completed until 1520. He believes that the date 1517 was selected as a tribute to Prior Goldstone, the originator, who died in that year. It may be pointed out that Mr. Humphery- Smith's booklet on the Gate, published by the Heraldry Society, also stressed that the completion by 1507 was 'debatable'. Mr. Blake's closely reasoned argument from the Gate's heraldry is that it commemorates Prince Arthur, Henry VII's son, who married Katharine of Aragon in 1501 and who died in 1502, leaving in the future several matrimonial problems for his brother Henry VIII. He makes out a good and readable case. However, the book's chief value is much greater than the theories contained in it, attractive though they may be. Mr. Blake's number one object in furthering his work has been to record both in writing and 292 REVIEWS pictorially the features of Christ Church Gate as it is today. He has done that efficiently and has added to our indebtedness by fuU discussion of each shield of arms. He has, possibly unwittingly, created a problem for the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral. They will have to think seriously about the shields which have been injudiciously altered during past restorations. L.R.A.G. The Fifth-Century Invasions South of the Thames. By Vera I. Evison. 9£ x 7. Pp. 142, 11 maps, 30 figs, and 18 plates. University of London: The Athlone Press, 1965. 75s. Who were the first post-Roman invaders in Southern England? Historically Jutes in Kent, or East Kent, the Isle of Wight and south Hampshire and elsewhere Saxons. The problem of East Kent in particular has long exercised scholars and throughout the whole region the comparative paucity of cremation burials appears in contrast to their frequent occurrence elsewhere. In 1913 Leeds regarded the earliest settlers in Kent as mainly Franks, though under Jutish leadership. A quarter of a century later he revised this view and called the earliest phase of settlement 'Jutish', by 'Jutish' meaning a mixture of Jutes and Frisians, the Frankish phase not starting until the sixth century. In his last writings on the subject Leeds stressed still further the northern elements in the Kentish culture of the fifth century. Professor Hawkes, writing in 1956, thought that there must have been a Frankish element in the original settlement of Kent, though 'not yet burying its dead with grave-goods such as to attest to its Frankish character'. For him there was ho valid reason to explain an early sixth century influx of Franks into Kent which would account for the Frankish material so common from about 525 onwards, while the Kentish institutions seemed to have a Frankish origin. I t is Miss Evison's thesis that actual remains of fifth century Frankish settlers are to be found in southern England. Starting with an examination of some richly furnished Frankish graves of the fourth and fifth centuries in north Gaul she next considers Frankish fifth century objects found in England, the distribution of each class of object being shown on a series of maps: metal-inlaid work, mostly iron buckles and buckle-plates, glass, both late Roman and fifth century, distinctive types of bronze-bound wooden buckets and belt-mounts and arrows. Nearly all these are imports, produced in the Meuse VaUey or northern Gaul and their distribution is almost exclusively limited to the area south of the Thames: of forty examples of metal-inlaid work, for instance, only three are from north of the Thames and two of these in Essex. The presence of these objects could be due to trade, but Miss Evison gives good reasons for regarding them as evidence of actual 293 REVIEWS settlers. An examination of individual graves, from Kent to Wiltshire and the Upper Thames Valley, leads to the same conclusion, a midfifth century invasion of Franks into parts of the counties south of the Thames. Next examined by Miss Evison is the group of brooches and harness fittings decorated in the distinctive animal art style, naturalistic though formalized, for which she adopts the name 'Quoit Brooch Style', since it is used on the well-known quoit brooches from Sarre and Howletts. Leeds thought this art style to be the work of the last Romano-Britons, much indebted to late GaUo-Roman art. Mrs. Hawkes regards it as a local English development, its finest products coming from a workshop near Canterbury and influencing other workshops in Sussex. Its origin she finds in south Scandinavia in the fifth century and hence names it 'Jutish Style A'. Miss Evison devotes over a third of her book to an examination of the Quoit Brooch Style. She shows that the objects decorated in this style, the techniques used and the style itself all have their origins in the late Roman art of northern Gaul. The objects found in England decorated in the quoit brooch style were made by immigrant craftsmen and the style reached the maturist point of its development here. Twenty-two such objects have been found, all but one south of the Thames. This study of objects decorated in the quoit brooch style and other fifth century Frankish objects and Frankish graves points, then, to an actual invasion of southern England by the Franks in the fifth century and in her final chapter Miss Evison reconsiders the account of the invasions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the light of her findings. She suggests that the invasions recorded for various years from 449 to 501 are really the original, weU-organized invasion of southern England in 449 and makes a number of other tentative alterations of some other dates, using the spacing of events in the Chronicle as a guide, so that the Battle of Bedford, for instance, takes place in 506 and not in 571, archseologically speaking a more satisfactory date. Attractive though these suggestions may be, however, they necessarily cannot be more than conjectural. This is not the case with Miss Evison's main thesis, which, based on fairly plentiful evidence, is convincing. If in Kent, for instance, one can add to the Anglo-Frisian pots, early cruciform brooches and rare cremation cemeteries such as Westbere the inhumation graves of Frankish invaders, the settlement pattern becomes far more credible and Professor Hawke's fifth century Franks become an actuality. Moreover Franks inhumating their dead help to fiU up a fifth century south of England whioh on the evidence of cremation burials looked rather empty. Common sense suggests that invaders of the southern English coast come from north France and an 294 REVIEWS invasion with a strong Frankish element—Miss Evison naturaUy accepts non-Frankish participation though regarding only the cruciform brooches as perhaps Jutish—is exactly what might be expected. Members of the society will read the book with the greatest interest. D.B.K. Roman Ways in the Weald. Ivan D. Margary. 8£ X 5£. Pp. 196. Copiously illustrated with maps and photographs. 3rd edn. Phoenix House, 1965. 36s. The first edition of this work was the subject of a long review in our volume Ixii, for 1949; at that time the late 0. G. S. Crawford wrote an appreciative foreword, happily reproduced in this edition, in which he predicted that Mr. Margary's bpok would become a classic. That prediction has been amply fulfiUed for there has been need for another edition. It has been brought up to date with records of new work and knowledge including an entirely new chapter describing the Chichester- Silchester Way, recently discovered, and there has been a revision, where necessary, of the strip-maps. Members wiU be glad to know that this latest edition is in our library. J.H.E. Living History. Alan Sorrel. 8f x 11|. Pp. 95. 39 full-page drawings, 35 photographs and a map. Batsford, 1965.25s. This is a book of drawings and photographs. The latter record the present-day state of various historical monuments, buildings and complexes of buildings, and on each opposite page there is a full-page drawing of a reconstruction of the original appearance of the item in question. These drawings are made as from mid air so that both the plans and main elevations of the buildings can be clearly discerned, while the natural backgrounds and the human figures give life and scale. The series opens, appropriately enough, with Stonehenge, passes to Hadrian's Wall and other architectural works of the Roman period, turns to an Iron Age Settlement in the Shetlands and to a Dark Age courtyard house in CornwaU. There then foUows views of reconstructions of 16 castles, 8 abbeys, 2 palaces and a haU, and the tailpiece illustrates Tilbury Fort. As Mr. S. E. Rigold, Assistant Inspector of Ancient Monuments, commends the work in an introduction we may feel assured of the accuracy of the reconstructions. This is an excellent piece of work and we hope that it will be the first of many such. It will remind us of so much which we h(ave lost and perhaps strengthen our resolve that we shaU lose no more. J.H.E. 295 REVIEWS The Pleasant Town of Sevenoaks. By Sir John Dunlop. 9 x 6 . Pp. iv 4- 239 with xii plates, xiii pages of iUustrations in the text and 8 maps. Published by the author. Both the old-established and recently arrived residents in Sevenoaks should be grateful to Sir John Dunlop for making available to them a History of their town which is both authoritative and highly readable. In his Foreword to The Pleasant Town of Sevenoaks, A History the author hastens to admit the debt he owes to previous writers and research workers in the same field, for there is extant an impressive mass of literature on the subject, much of the later work coming from the pens of members of our Society. Frankly the author acknowledges the extent he has drawn on the writings of Lady Nicholson, Dr. Gordon Ward, Frank W. Jessup, Hugh Wyatt Standen, Dr. P. H. Reaney, Herbert W. Knocker, and Charles Phillips to mention but some. Official records preserved at the Public Record Office, information collected at the Sevenoaks Public Library and papers scattered through the 78 volumes of Archceologia Cantiana have been painstakingly consulted and a vast amount of historical material extracted therefrom. Out of this plethora of recorded facts Sir John Dunlop has developed the growth-story of a town and its environs and presented the results of his labours to the discerning reader in a most informative and palatable form. When the need arises he has drawn upon the canvas of national history, outlining the details of some important event where these help to colour the local scene. Because in the main this book is directed to the general reader, who may not always be conversant with the meaning of terms that are commonplace in the working historian's vocabulary, the author has •been at pains to explain unusual terms to the uninitiated. An example of this is how the description 'Feet of Fines' came to be applied to records of land tenure (p. 64) and its derivation. But in one case his erudition has been defeated. A certain 'John Brand allowed the servants of his neighbours to play at "carpas thesaurinas" in his house during day and night' (p. 66). What these 'goings on' were is left a mystery. The last two chapters are devoted to the life of the town and the changes which have taken place during the present century. Here the writer has been faced with the difficulty experienced by aU local historians in a similar field of how much or how little that is within living memory should be included. Information "that may be of considerable value for local record can well prove tedious to those readers who do not have an intimate knowledge of the district. For example should the fact be recorded that the International Stores opened a branch in the High Street in 1891 or Messrs. Boots, Cash Chemists, came to Sevenoaks 296 REVD3WS in 1912? Nevertheless such happenings are, of course, all part of local history. The book is very well illustrated with both maps, half-tone plates and pen and ink sketches. One of the latter (p. 83) is of particular interest because of the suggestion that once there may have been a bell tower on the north side of the chancel of St. Nicholas church. This is indicated by Mr. Bernard Fenner, who made the drawing, in dotted outline. A precisely similar arrangement exists at the church of St. John the Baptist, Harrietsham. The drawings of old buildings in the town whUst pleasant as sketches may be open to criticism as being not always architecturally correct reconstructions of Tudor work. There are five valuable appendices and a very full index. R.H.G. NOTES ON ARTICLES Antiquity, Vol. xxxviii, 1964. p. 296, The Survival of Romano-British Place-names in Southern England. A. H. A. Hogg. p. 303, National Reference Collection of Medieval Pottery. Vol. xxxix, 1965. pp. 9,117, Folklore of Fossils. K. Oakley. p. 17, The Finglesham Man. S. C. Hawkes, H. R. Ellis- Davidson, C. Hawkes. pp. 57, 137 and 225, Town Defences in Roman Britain. M. G. Jarrett, S. S. Frere, J . S. Wacher. p. 126, Wayland's Smithy. R. J . C. Atkinson. p. 165, Archaeological Draughtsmanship. S. Piggott. p. 204, Animals in Archseology. Raymond E. Chaplin. History, Vol. xlix, 1964. p. 325, Short Guide to Records: Estate Acts of Parliament. Vol. 1,1965. p. 36, Short Guide to Records: Wills. p. 60, Saint Anselm Reconsidered. p. 193, Short Guide to Records: Recusant RoUs. Medieval Archceology, Vol. viii, 1964. p. 91, The Saxon BuUding-Stone Industry in Southern and Midland England. E. M. Jope. p. 119, Cruck Construction: A Survey of the Problems. J. T. Smith. p. 152, The Origin and Development of Crown-Post Roofs. J. M. Fletcher, P. S. Spokes. 297